The Paper Cap. A Story of Love and Labor. Barr Amelia E.
smiled happily, the door opened, and the next moment she gave the smile in a kiss to her father, as he clasped her fondly in his arms, crying, “Eh, my joy! I am glad to see thee!” Then the two women made that charming fuss over his “tired look,” which is so consoling to men fresh from the slings and arrows of an outrageous world that will not do as they want it to do.
In his family life the squire still retained many old-fashioned customs, and his dinner at one o’clock was a settled ceremony. This day, in the very middle of it, Katherine said, “I saw you, father, this morning when you were talking to Mr. Bradley on the Green – about ten o’clock.”
“And I saw thee trailing through the low meadows with Bradley’s son.”
“Yes, he came home last night.”
“And went out t’ varry next morning, to meet thee in t’ low meadow.”
“If you say, he happened to meet me in the low meadow, it would be better.”
“Whativer hed the lad to do in my meadow so early in the morning?”
“Do you call half-past ten early, dad?”
“I call it too early for thee to be traipsing through t’ wet grass with Henry Bradley.”
“Let us keep to facts, dear father. The grass was quite dry – too dry. Joel was wishing for rain; he said, ‘Master so pampered his cattle, that they perfectly thought scorn of half-cured grass.’”
“Thou art trying to slip by my question and I’m not going to let thee do it. What was John Henry Bradley doing wi’ thee in the low meadow this morning?”
“He brought me a letter from my brother Dick. Dick and Harry have been in London together, and they stayed four days with Aunt Josepha. They liked her very much. They took her to the opera and the play and she snubbed O’Connell and some other famous men and told them to let her alone, that she had two innocent lads in her care – and so on. You know.”
“Was he making love to thee?”
“You should not ask me a question of that kind, dad.”
“Thou need not tell me, what I should, or should not do. I hed learned all that, before thou wer born. And I’ll tell thee plainly that I will not hev any lovemaking between thee and Harry Bradley.”
“Very well, father. If you are going to the stable will you tell someone to have my saddle horse at the door in half-an-hour?”
“To be sure, I will. If tha wants a ride and will go to Yoden Bridge, I’ll go with thee.”
“I would like that but I promised to help Faith Foster, who is making clothing for the naked, shivering babies in Annis village. When Oddy’s little girl died a week ago, there wasn’t a night-gown in the house to bury it in. Its mother tore a breadth out of her one petticoat and folded her baby in it.”
“Oh, Katherine Annis! Surely that tale is not true!” cried Madam.
“Alas, it is too true! The baby’s one little gown was not fit even for the grave.”
The Squire sat down and covered his face with his hands and when Katherine left the room he looked up pitifully at his wife. And she stooped and kissed him and as she did so comforted him with broken words of affection and assurances that it was not his fault – “thou hast pinched us all a bit to keep the cottage looms busy,” she said, “thou couldn’t do more than that, could thou, Antony?”
“I thought I was doing right. Is there any other way?”
“Thou could build – like the rest.”
He did not answer the remark but stood up hurriedly, saying, “I must go and order Katherine’s mount and she will expect me to put her up. After that I may go to Yoden Bridge.”
Madam sighed and turned hopelessly away. “When will he listen to reason?” she whispered, but there was no answer.
CHAPTER II – THE PROSPECT OF LONDON LIFE
“Men who their duties know,
But know their rights, and knowing dare maintain.”
“The blind mole casts
Copp’d hills toward heaven, to tell the earth is throng’d
By man’s oppression and the poor worm doth die for’t.”
IT is during the hungry years of the thirties and forties of the nineteenth century that the great body of Englishmen and Englishwomen reveal themselves most nobly and clearly in their national character. They were years of hunger and strife but it is good to see with what ceaseless, persistent bravery they fought for their ideals year after year, generation after generation, never losing hope or courage but steadily working and waiting for the passage of that great Reform Bill, which would open the door for their recognition at least as members of the body politic.
Yet this Reform Bill terrified the aristocracy and great land holders and they were sure that its passage would sweep away both the monarchy and the House of Lords. What else could be looked for if the franchise was given to the laborer and the mechanic? The Bill had been well received by the House of Commons, but rejected by the House of Lords on the twentieth day of the previous October; and the condition of the country was truly alarming.
Madam Annis reminded her daughter of this fact but Katherine was not to be frightened. “Your father,” she said, “has just told us about the riot and outrages at Derby and the burning of Nottingham Castle by a frantic mob and the press says – ‘the people in London are restless and full of passion.’ Still more to be wondered at is the letter which Thomas Attwood, the great banker, has just sent to the Duke of Wellington. In this letter he dared to threaten the government, to tell them he would march on London with a hundred thousand men, in order to inquire why the Reform Bill was hindered and delayed. This morning’s paper comments on this threat and says, The Duke of Wellington is not afraid of this visit, but would rather it was not paid.’ All the way up to London there is rioting. It is not a fit journey for thee to take. Mind what I say.”
“Oh, mother, only think! I might have been in the Ladies’ Gallery, in the House. I might have heard Mr. Macaulay’s answer to the Lord’s denial, with his grand question to the Commons, ‘Ought we to abandon the Reform Bill because the Lords have rejected it? No! We must respect the lawful privileges of their House, but we ought also to assert our own.’ No wonder the Commons cheered, and cheered, and cheered him. Oh, how gladly I would have helped them!”
“You are going too far and too fast, Katherine.”
“Father ought to have been in the House on the third of February and it is now the seventh of March: Is that right?”
“A great many landed men will not go to this session. The Reform Bill, re-written by Lord Russell, is to come up again and father does not want to vote either for, or against it.”
“Why?”
“He hes his reasons. I doan’t know that his reasons are any business of thine.”
“Harry Bradley was explaining things to me this morning, and I am for the Reform Bill. I am sure the people are right.”
“I wouldn’t say as much on thy opinion. Wisdom wasn’t born wi’ thee and I doan’t expect she will die wi’ thee. I think if thou went to London this spring thou would make more enemies than thou could manage. Father is following my advice in staying home, and London isn’t a fit place for a young girl like thee and the way there is full of rioters. Thy father is a landed man and he doesn’t believe in giving every weaver and hedger and ditcher a voice in the government of England.”
“Harry Bradley says, some of their leaders and speakers are very clever eloquent men.”
“I wouldn’t talk nonsense after Harry Bradley. Who’s Harry Bradley?”
“He is my friend, mother. We have been friends nearly twenty years.”
“Not you! It is not yet eighteen years